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Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Are we a nation of laws or not?

Published by Tom Sullivan on September 1, 2023

Or just when conservatives find it convenient?

Fourteenth Amendment challenges (and counterchallenges) to Donald Trump’s disqualification for any public office in these United States are beginning to multiply. On its face, the post-Civil War constitutional amendment disqualifies Trump from running again for president over his involvement in the Jan. 6 attempted coup. Multiple conservative legal experts agree.

Activists have already challenged Trump’s eligibility in North Carolina and Florida.

And so? (CNN):

New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan, a Republican, said earlier this week that he asked the state’s attorney general to examine the matter and advise him on the “provision’s potential applicability to the upcoming presidential election cycle.” The attorney general’s office said it was “carefully reviewing the legal issues.”

In the statement, Scanlan said he wasn’t taking a position on the disqualification question and was not “seeking to take certain action” but was going to study the matter in anticipation of lawsuits.

Oh, they’re coming (Associated Press):

The 14th Amendment bars from office anyone who once took an oath to uphold the Constitution but then “engaged” in “insurrection or rebellion” against it. A growing number of legal scholars say the post-Civil War clause applies to Trump after his role in trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election and encouraging his backers to storm the U.S. Capitol.

Two liberal nonprofits pledge court challenges should states’ election officers place Trump on the ballot despite those objections.

Just days ago in Michigan, “litigious activist Robert Davis” asked Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson to declare Trump ineligible.

Michigan state Rep. Peter Meijer (R) declared in response, “This kind of asshattery would be immediately rejected as nonsense by serious people in normal times. I don’t give a damn what your ‘novel legal theory’ is- it will be far more corrosive to the body politic than whatever threat it is you think you’re ‘protecting’ the country from.”

Novel legal theory? Princeton University historian Kevin Kruse responds, “Six officials were barred under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment a century and a half ago. And a participant in Trump’s insurrection was disqualified from office last year.”

Julian Sanchez, a writer and former senior fellow at the Cato Institute, replied, “It’s… not a ‘novel legal theory,’ it’s a 155-year-old constitutional provision that explicitly disqualifies people from federal office, and which a bunch of prominent conservative legal theorists believe applies squarely to Trump.”

“I’ll note the courts have already applied this to Jan 6 insurrectionists: A county commissioner in NM was removed from office under this clause, and his appeal was rejected by the state’s supreme court,” Sanchez concludes. “So apparently not entirely unserious.”

New Mexico’s state Supreme Court denied former Otero County Commissioner Couy Griffin’s appeal in February.

Sanchez adds, “The ‘novel legal theory’ would be that an express Constitutional clause doesn’t apply when it’s politically inconvenient.”

The Queen of Hearts’ rules

Constitution, shmonstitution, say the pocket Constitution-clutchers. The law is what MAGA Republicans say it is. Before there were MAGA Republicans there were T-party Republicans. Same difference, as they say. The law is what they think it should be.

But that’s always been the case for conservatives: preferential treatment for the preferred. And they get to say who’s preferred. Cue Frank Wilhoit:

Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit:

There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.

There is nothing more or else to it, and there never has been, in any place or time.

“Off with their heads!”

“How do you abandon deeply held beliefs about character, personal responsibility, foreign policy, and the national debt in a matter of months? You don’t. The obvious answer is those beliefs weren’t deeply held,” one-time Republican Stuart Stevens wrote in “It Was All a Lie: How the Republican Party Became Donald Trump. “

The fascists’ creed

Published by Tom Sullivan on September 1, 2023

Jan. 6 was just a warm-up

Change can be threatening. It can be uncomfortable. What it means to an uncomfortably large number of white men who can’t get over themselves is an occasion for violence, even murder. In Jesus’s name. Spouses, children, and neighbors beware.

Behold the righteous Christian soldier (and sometime bounty hunter) preaching death to MAGA enemies:

Right Wing Watch elaborates:

Stew Peters is a far-right virulently anti-LGBTQ bigot who regularly uses his nightly “The Stew Peters Show” program, speeches, and social media accounts to promote white nationalists and antisemites and to spread wild conspiracy theories, bigotry, and calls for violence.

Lately, those calls for violence have become increasingly explicit, as just last week Peters used his program to urge Americans to begin exploring “extra-legal options” to remove “enemy combatants” like Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs from office.

Over the weekend, Peters joined members of former President Donald Trump’s family and inner circle and a cavalcade of far-right conspiracy theorists for a ReAwaken America event in Las Vegas, where he delivered a bloodthirsty rant that was alarming even by Peters’ already unhinged standards.

Speaking on the same stage as the likes of Donald Trump Jr., Lara Trump, Kimberly Guilfoyle, and Michael Flynn, Peters repeatedly called for his perceived political enemies to be executed.

Dr. Anthony Fauci? Dead. Doctors who treat transgender youth? Dead. Hunter Biden? Dead. Neidermeyer? Dead! (Gallows humor on that last one. Sorry.)

“We are going to see extreme accountability,” Peters asserted. “Maximum accountability. We are going to have permanent accountability, with extreme prejudice!”

Every one of Peters’ violent threats was met by wild cheers from the audience.

A slightly less virulent version of this pitch led a MAGA mob to march on the U.S. Capitol, to battle armed police for hours, and to sack the halls of Congress. We all watched it live.

If Peters used the words “cockroaches” and “snakes” on the ReAwaken America tour, it’s not been reported, but you get the idea. Dave Neiwert has been warning about eliminationism for years.

“Some liberals will argue that this is ‘just rhetoric,’ that nobody is answering these calls,” Jeff Sharlet (“The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War“) posted. “& yet one answer is Jacksonville; another is bomb threats shutting down schools for having queer books; another is schools without books at all.”

“Seems to me they’re eager for someone else to start killing,” responded historian Heather Cox Richardson (Letters from an American). “A sick game, rather like that of Shakespeare’s Iago, who convinces Othello to kill a whole bunch of people and destroy how [sic] own life, just through the power of Iago’s lies. The ultimate power trip.”

Consider the hundreds facing jail time and financial ruin over their embrace of Donald Trump’s big lie, Ruth Ben Ghiat (“Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present“) said recently. Trump will never know their names or care about their fates, yet they sacrificed their freedom for him.

And for whatever demons torment their souls.

Consider a few of the men who answered Trump’s call on Jan. 6 (NBC News):

Joe Biggs, a Proud Boys leader convicted of seditious conspiracy who the government says “served as an instigator and leader” during the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, was sentenced to 17 years in federal prison Thursday.

It is among the longest sentences in Capitol riot cases. The record is the 18-year sentence given to Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, also convicted of seditious conspiracy, after prosecutors sought 25 years in federal prison.

It took an unsettling amount of time for the overwhelmed Department of Justice to apprehend and charge the hundreds aho stormed the Capitol. Just as it took the DOJ and state authorities to charge those working in front of the cameras and behind them to attempt the coup that culminated in the Jan. 6 insurrection. But the wheels of justice operate more slowly than a lynch mob with ropes.

Biggs went to trial alongside Enrique Tarrio, Ethan Nordean, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola. All five were convicted of felonies, and all but Pezzola were convicted of seditious conspiracy. The other Proud Boys were also to be sentenced in the coming days: Rehl on Thursday afternoon, Pezzola and Nordean on Friday and Tarrio on Tuesday.

[U.S. District Judge Timothy] Kelly sentenced Rehl later Thursday afternoon to 15 years in federal prison. Prosecutors had sought 30 years. “You did spray that officer, and then you lied about it,” Kelly told Rehl. “Those are what we call in the law bad facts.”

Here’s another bucking for an indictment and advocating violence where the rule of law should be.

Trump donors help No Labels

Published by digby on August 31, 2023

I wonder why?

This is distressing. It appears that No Labels is going ahead with its plans to sabotage the election in favor of Donald Trump. And they’re taking money from Trump donors to help make it happen:

A major Republican donor and one-time financial backer of former President Donald Trump is now a leader in the Florida chapter of No Labels’ third-party presidential bid.

Allan Keen, a Florida-based real estate developer and investor who gave more than $137,000 to Trump-related election entities last cycle, has joined the centrist political group in a leadership role with its Florida chapter.

“I help when I can help. I believe in the cause,” Keen told POLITICO. After Trump’s actions on Jan. 6, 2021, he said he surrendered his Republican voter registration card for one that says, “No Labels Party of Florida.”

Keen’s involvement with No Labels is an extension of the work he has done with the group since 2016, including donating to its Problem Solvers PAC. But it is likely to heighten Democratic criticism that the third-party presidential bid will only hurt President Joe Biden’s reelection prospects.

No Labels, which referred all questions to Keen, has insisted that it does not want to play the role of spoiler in electing Trump. But it has also directly solicited financial help from GOP fundraisers, of which Keen is a member. And some Republicans concede that its presence on the ticket will harm the current president.

“A third party will likely benefit Trump,” said former Trump spokesperson Sean Spicer, whether it’s No Labels or Green Party candidate Cornel West. He compared such efforts to Jill Stein’s Green Party campaign in 2016. “West only needs 30,000 votes” to tip Wisconsin to Republicans, Spicer said at the Republican debate in Milwaukee last week.

Much earlier in his political-giving career, Keen supported Democrats. But his most recent roster of beneficiaries includes GOP luminaries such as Mitt Romney, John McCain, John Boehner, Marco Rubio and the Bush-Cheney ticket. He has also donated to Arizona Democrat-turned-Independent Sen. Krysten Sinema‘s campaign as recently as this year.

Keen initially backed former Gov. Jeb Bush in the 2016 primary before, in his words, “reluctantly” voting for Trump. Though he did not approve of everything Trump did — “he did a bunch of stupid things,” Keen said, like attacking the late Arizona Sen. John McCain — the Florida businessperson supported Trump for reelection and hosted an $11,500 per person fundraiser for the then-president in February 2020.

“I did support him. I gave him money and went to a few events. I felt he was a better candidate at that time,” Keen said in an interview.

Keen attributes Trump’s attacks on McCain in part to his loss in Arizona. He also criticized “all the shenanigans” of Jan. 6, which, he said, prompted him to go all in on No Labels. Keen didn’t think what Trump did was “appropriate.”

The Florida investor first became involved with No Labels in 2016 and joined the board of the Florida affiliate after the 2020 election. The Florida group is headed by Kathleen Shanahan, a businessperson who previously served as chief of staff for then-Gov. Jeb Bush.

Keen said he has no “predetermined opinion” on who might top a No Labels presidential ticket. “That, of course, will be a process,” he said. “I think everyone feels that reason and good judgment will prevail such that there is no anointed person — the way it should be.”

That’s a good line but I don’t believe it. Trump donors who give money to No Labels aren’t Never Trumpers, they are “Anybody But Biden.” There’s a difference. If they really wanted to stop Trump they’d hold their noses and vote for Biden. Otherwise, they are supporting Trump. These aren’t unsophisticated idealistic young people. They know what they’re doing.

Georgia GOP leaders say no, no, no

Published by digby on August 31, 2023

Thank you

Brian Kemp is a right wing Republican whose political views are abhorrent to me. But at least he isn’t a coward. He continues to stand up to the MAGA cult, as do some others in the Georgia GOP:

Gov. Brian Kemp is telling several far-right Georgia lawmakers to lay off the calls to impeach Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.

Georgia Sen. Colton Moore has led a charge via a letter to Kemp requesting a special legislative session to impeach Willis after a grand jury handed up an indictment against former President Trump and 18 of his allies in the state and beyond alleging a conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election here in Georgia.

During a news conference Thursday, Kemp said, despite his personal feelings about the investigation, he does not have the authority to call a special session.

“We have a law in the state of Georgia that clearly outlines the legal steps that can be taken if constituents believe their local prosecutors are violating their oath by engaging in unethical or illegal behavior,” Kemp said.

Kemp said, up to now, he has not seen any evidence that warrants any action by the prosecuting attorneys oversight commission.

The governor said not only does he believe calling a special session to remove Willis from the investigation would be unfeasible, but he also said it would likely be unconstitutional.

“As long as I am governor, we’re going to follow the law and the Constitution, regardless of who it helps or harms politically,” Kemp said.

The move comes one day after Georgia House Speaker Jon Burns senta letter to his caucus saying he too was not supportive of the movenor was there any legal precedence for them to impeach her.

The letter states in part, that “we continue to have a few members of the General Assembly making misleading or false claims about the General Assembly’s lawful powers regarding an ongoing criminal case before our Judiciary.”

Burns called it an unfortunate part of modern politics, saying that “theatrics sometimes garner more attention than genuine human needs.”

Additionally, the Speaker said efforts to defund Willis’ office directly would both interfere with the criminal justice system in Georgia at large but have impacts across the state.

“Regardless of your views of this case, removing this funding would also have the unintended consequence of causing a delay or complete lack of prosecution of other serious offenses, like murder, rape, armed robbery, gang prosecution, battery, etc.,” Burns said in part.

Here’s an example of the people Kemp and Burns are responding to:

Georgia is now a swing state and savvy politicians like Kemp understand that. He also hates Trump. That combination has led to a different dynamic than other southern states.

When they go low he goes lower

Published by digby on August 31, 2023

Oh Tucker, you really are a jackass:

Donald Trump can boast all he wants about his interview with Tucker Carlson being “the Biggest Video on Social Media, EVER” (it’s not), but it sure seems like Carlson is missing Fox News. He’s, uh, not doing great based on a recent chat with Adam Carolla on The Adam Carolla Show podcast.

When asked by the former The Man Show host if “they” are going to let Trump be president (“they” is probably everyone who doesn’t roast their nuts in the sun), Carlson answered, “No, of course. I mean, look, if, you know, they protested him, they called him names. He won anyway. They impeached him twice on ridiculous pretenses. They fabricated a lot about what happened on January 6 in order to impeach him again,” etc. You get the idea. But then Carlson predicted Trump will get assassinated if he becomes president.

“If you begin with criticism, then you go to protest. Then you go to impeachment. Now you go to indictment and none of them work. What’s next? I mean, you know, graph it out, man! We’re speeding toward assassination, obviously, and no one will say that! But I don’t, I don’t know how you can’t reach that conclusion. You know what it been like. They have decided, permanent Washington. Both parties have decided that there’s something about Trump that’s so threatening to them, they just can’t have it.”

Carlson wasn’t done. He also claimed that in 2008, “it became really clear that Barack Obama had been having sex with men and smoking crack and a guy came forward, Larry Sinclair, and said ‘I’ll sign an affidavit and I’ll take a lie detector’ and he did.” That’s not the craziest part of the interview, however. Carlson’s camera angle is:

By the way, they’re also pushing the “Michelle Obama is really a man” thing hard these days:

Is there anything more to say???

The Meadows testimony

Published by digby on August 31, 2023

In case you were still wondering, this is Mark Meadows’ strategy:

To get his case “removed” to federal court, Meadows needs to establish three things. The first, that he was a federal officer at the time of the alleged offense, is not in dispute. The second is that the conduct alleged against him has a “causal connection” to federal office. The third is that he has a colorable federal defense against the charges. To satisfy the third prong, Meadows has asserted a federal defense called Supremacy Clause immunity, which shields federal officers from state prosecutions arising from conduct they subjectively and reasonably believed to be “necessary and proper” in carrying out their federal duties.

I had been under the impression until this week that only state law would apply to a case that had been “removed” to federal court. But no. The Supremacy Clause immunity is the big enchilada.

The author of that paragraph Anna Bower of Lawfare was in the courtroom and ran down the entire proceeding. It’s quite interesting. Perhaps the most important part is the fact that Meadows’ defense is now right out in the open and it isn’t all that great for Donald Trump. He’s trying to save his own bacon so he’s saying he was just following orders, doing mundane tasks leaving all the important stuff in Trump’s lap. Let’s just say he didn’t offer a rousing defense of the Big Lie or his Dear Leader.

If Meadows gets off the hook with the Supremacy Clause, it’s certainly possible that Trump will too and that will be that for the Georgia case. But if he does have to stand trial I hope Donald Trump isn’t counting on him to back him. Meadows will save himself and no one else.

UNC shooting aftermath

Published by Tom Sullivan on August 31, 2023

Bringing the fight

“I shed many tears while typing up these heart-wrenching text messages sent and received by UNC students yesterday. Our campus was on lockdown for more than three hours,” writes Caitlyn Yaede of The Daily Tar Heel.

Another storm was brewing in Chapel Hill, NC on Wednesday even as Hurricane/Tropical Storm Idalia traversed the lower part of the state (WSOC):

A shooting that left a faculty member dead and frightened students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has galvanized gun safety advocates and local Democrats, who rallied the grieving campus community Wednesday to fight for stricter state gun laws.

About 600 students held protest signs on a large lawn in the heart of campus and bowed their heads during a moment of silence as the iconic campus Bell Tower rang in honor of the deceased associate professor, Zijie Yan.

Yan, who led a research group in the Department of Applied Physical Sciences, was fatally shot Monday by one of his graduate students inside a science lab building at the state’s flagship public university, authorities said.

Photo via Cardinal and Pine.

NC Democrats’ state chair, Anderson Clayton, 25, lit into the state’s Republican-controlled legislature for failing to address gun violence, calling for “a reckoning in our state capital.”

Rep. Lindsey Prather (D-Buncombe), a former schoolteacher, posted on the “generational divide” between the students who live with gun violence and their “desensitized” elders. “They think it’s fake outrage. Trust me, it’s not.”

March For Our Lives founder David Hogg, a survivor of the Parkland, FL mass-shooting, addressed the crowd. In light of the daily shootings, “We need to repurpose the meaning of run, hide, fight. We need to run for office to replace those and change our government,” Hogg said. “There are some people on the stage with me where this is their third shooting … and they aren’t even old enough top run for Congress yet.”

Days earlier, Tennessee Republicans voted to silence state Rep. Justin Jones (D) for demanding that state’s lawmakers do something in the wake of the Nashville elementary school shooting in March. The “GOP-dominant Statehouse refused to take up gun control measures” for which the special session was called.

Coincidentally, I had a conversation on Wednesday with a Young Democrat leader about 2024 strategy. He and others from his cohort had spent the last two days nearly nonstop on the phone organizing in the wake of the UNC shooting.

Young people like Clayton and Hogg and Jones are showing voters and college students, especially, that there is still fight in the Democratic Party. Younger voters, if they turn out in numbers, can dominate American elections:

I’ve noted before: How many Rocky movies did Stallone make? And they’re all the same movie. So why do people keep going? Because so many Americans themselves feel like underdogs. We want to root for the little guy with heart. Facing insurmountable odds. Risking it all. We want to feel the thrill up our spines and in the tops of our heads when Bill Conti’s trumpet fanfare introduces the training sequence. We want to hear that. Wait for it. Cheer for it. Pay for it. Over and over and over.

It’s past time for younger progressives eager to fight to take the lead. And for Democrats who won’t to retire.

An elephant in the headlights

Published by Tom Sullivan on August 31, 2023

Mitch McConnell freezes up again

Sen. Mitch McConnell, whatever parts are failing him, is yet another entry into the decline of the Washington, D.C. gerontocracy (Washington Post):

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) appeared to freeze for more than 20 seconds Wednesday while taking questions from journalists in an incident that mirrored another occasion when he abruptly stopped speaking in late July.

McConnell took questions from reporters in Covington, Ky., after talking with a local group. A reporter asked him about running for reelection in 2026, then repeated the query twice when McConnell said he couldn’t hear, according to video of the incident.

McConnell, 81, chuckled and said, “Oh, that’s, uhh —” and stopped speaking. After about seven seconds, an aide approached and asked the senator if he had heard the question.

She was covering, clearly, to make it appear his problem was hearing.

McConnell stared straight ahead, and the aide asked reporters to give them a minute.

Another aide then walked over and spoke to McConnell, who signaled that he was fine. McConnell then cleared his throat, said “Okay,” and continued to take questions. His answers were stilted.

In total, the minority leader was silent for more than 20 seconds.

“Leader McConnell felt momentarily lightheaded and paused during his press conference today,” a spokesman for McConnell said in a statement afterward.

At 81, McConnell is not okay while President Joe Biden, 80, is out bicycling.

Biden’s quadruply indicted predecessor, 77, is … what he is.

Many families face that moment when it’s time for the kids to take away mom’s or dad’s car keys. Dents and broken taillights testify that their eyesight is shot and their reflexes too. Or worse, they wander off and cannot find their way home or remember who they are talking to or where they are. It does not happen to every elderly person. The spouse has a friend who at 100 still writes cogent letters to the editor. She can’t hear well, but she’s otherwise remained sharp and mobile. Both my grandmothers made it to 92 with their wits about them even as their bodies declined. (Fingers crossed here.)

Senators with tenure build up an infrastructure around themselves of executive perks plus staff and advisers whose livelihoods depend on the senator continuing to be a senator. So much so that that they don’t know when it’s time to go, and there’s no one to take the keys. Their retinue has little incentive to.

Whatever is ailing McConnell, he is clearly ailing. Likely, he never has to drive himself anywhere, so that’s a plus. Perhaps it’s Parkinson’s which I wouldn’t wish on anyone.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California reached that point some time ago:

Feinstein, Jane Mayer’s sources tell her, suffers from significant short-term memory loss. Republican Sen. Strom Thurmond’s was so notorious in South Carolina by his late-80s (I was told) he was said to have introduced himself to one of his sons at an event. During the Clinton impeachment, a reporter recounted Thurmond (96) mistaking him for an aide outside a hearing room and taking his arm as his escort “to the toilee.”

The back end of that Thurmond story was an aide bursting into the men’s room in a panic over having lost the senator. But so long as the staff could wind him up each morning and keep him moving without falling over they could keep their jobs.

McConnell is having trouble not falling over.

They believe what they want to believe

Published by digby on August 30, 2023

New polling from Georgia:

Most Republican voters in Georgia polled by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution say they still believe the 2020 presidential election was tainted by large-scale fraud — despite abundant evidence to the contrary.

The poll of likely Republican Party primary voters shows that 61% of respondents said there was widespread fraud in the last presidential election, a distrust that has persisted for nearly three years as another race looms.

So most of them think the election was stolen in Georgia. They believe Trump but not their state officials who claim that he is lying. And yet, a majority supports them too:

Though many GOP voters retain their unproven suspicions about the 2020 election, they haven’t turned against Georgia Republican leaders who rejected Donald Trump’s unfounded claims.

Gov. Brian Kemp, who refused Trump’s call for a special legislative session to question the election results, achieved an 80% approval rating. Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, a major Trump supporter, won approval from 44% of poll respondents, with 45% undecided.

And a plurality of Republicans, 49%, approve of Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger even though he resisted Trump’s demand that he “find” enough votes to reverse the results. About 23% were undecided on Raffensperger.

Three vote counts and dozens of investigations upheld the results of the 2020 election, which Democrat Joe Biden won by about 12,000 votes in Georgia. Investigations debunked claims of double-counting by poll workers, ballot stuffing, counterfeit ballots and dead voters.

I suspect that quite a few of these people know that the Big Lie is a lie. They just don’t care. They love Trump and as far as they’re concerned he can lie all he wants.